Choosing the Right Oven for Your Pizza Place

Choosing the Right Oven for Your Pizza Place

If you think you got the perfect pizza recipe, and you’ve just recently decided to open up a local pizza store that will put Pizza Hut to shame, then you should probably start off by looking for a great location and getting the necessary industrial food machine. It’s hard to take advice on the right place for the joint, as it can differ from town to town, and even from street to street, and it’s something that you should inspect and do the homework on by yourself. However, buying a pizza oven and other necessary equipment for the kitchen, is something you can take advice on, in order to make the best pizza.

Contrary to popular belief, the role an industrial food machine plays in the quality of the final product, in this case the pizza, is immense. Needless to say, it does heavily depend on the ingredients, sauce, combinations and other elements as well, but the oven can either make or break a pizza. Ovens come in many different shapes and sizes for both residential and commercial use, and there’s a wide array of them that can make the buying process somewhat frustrating, so here are the most popular types of pizza ovens that you can choose from.

Wood-Burning Oven

This traditional style oven is the ideal choice if you want the pizza to have an authentic flavour. These ovens can heat up to 1.000 degrees and are stoked up with coal or large wood fire. They have a refractory dome at the top which magnifies and reflects the heat inside it, which in turn provides consistent heat on every surface. A wood-burning oven should only be considered if you think you’ll be constantly making pizzas throughout the entire day.

Conveyor Oven

If your goal is to make pizzas in a fast-food manner, where speed is of the essence, then the conveyor oven is probably the ideal choice for you. On average, these ovens are capable of cooking a pizza in about 5 to 6 minutes. You place the pizza on one end, which is moved through the conveyor via the oven. The pizza will then exit the other end ready to be cut.

Convection Oven

If you’re opening a pizza place on a budget, then a convection oven is a good way to start, as they’re efficient, cheap and are powered electrically (there are gas models as well). These ovens apply hot air over the surface of the pizza until it’s cooked. They’re extremely energy and cost-efficient, but they have a hard time making the pizza crisp and crust.

Deck Oven

Deck ovens are very common in commercial restaurants and pizza places as they’re capable of producing quality, traditional-style pizza. They feature a wide opening, and you can cook multiple pizzas at ones. Moreover, they sit on heated stones and they feature heated elements from the top to cook the toppings. They’re very similar to wood-burning ovens, except that you don’t need to pre-heat them.